“No Mario's Sky” Game Renamed to “DMCA’s Sky”

Nintendo continues to fight against fan-made games that mention its characters. In response, developers of one game have bitten back and rebranded their game as DMCA's Sky. Unfortunately, that couldn't stop it being withdrawn from triannual game coding competition.

As you know, Nintendo is one of the most enduring and popular gaming brands in the world with decades of experience under its belt. The company is still making waves with the recent revival of Pokémon as a global phenomenon. Besides, Nintendo continues to protect its continuous popularity of flagship character Mario. Viewing its intellectual property rights as its most valuable asset, Nintendo is cracking down on anyone using its characters without permission – from fan-made Metroid clone AM2R to Pokémon Uranium.

Now the company targets a project that by constraint was just a few hours old within the frameworks of Ludum Dare (a triannual game coding competition). The competition has become more popular after Minecraft designer became a semi-regular entrant. The Ludum Dare feature is that competitors are given a theme and then have to produce a finished game in 2 or 3 days.

One of the team entrants created “No Mario’s Sky”, a game that clearly plays on Hello Games’ “No Man’s Sky”. However, it was the Nintendo element that got the developers in trouble.

After Nintendo’s DMCA notice, the developers immediately took the game down, which also had an effect on their standing at Ludum Dare. However, after addressing the issues highlighted by Nintendo, the developers went back to work and removed all “infringing” elements from “No Mario’s Sky” and renamed it into “DMCA’s Sky”. The group issued a statement, addressing the players and saying thanks to everyone for playing and enjoying a fan game. They also encouraged Nintendo to release an official game in this style. Of course, it is doubtful that Nintendo will follow up on the request, but the developers seem to be taking their little run-in with Nintendo in their stride. At the same time, Internet users are already swapping file-hosting links to the outlawed No Mario’s Sky. This shows that Nintendo has not only failed in its quest to kill the game but instead has thrust it into the spotlight.